Combining a ginger beer kit with a porter/stout kit.

[WeatherWithYou]

I had an idea while drunk and now I'm sober I'm curious about it's feasibility.

I want a lazy, ginger-y dark ale, something reminiscent of ginger biscuits and coffee.

I was thinking of just chucking a standard Ginger Beer kit in with a Porter or Stout kit, throw in adjuncts as required, and then ferment.

Has anybody tried something like this? Any issues? Yeast recommendations? I was thinking a hop stand with a citrusy hop might add something nice as well.

 

[kadmium]

Maybe get yourself a nice Stout and a Ginger Beer and try blending them first. See if you like the style before committing to 20L of the stuff!

Otherwise, a normal stout yeast s-04 dry or WLP007 or Dennys Fave 50 in liquid.

I would avoid hops as there would already be a fair bit going on?

 

[Tangentile]

I made an awesome gingered dark ale that I got from The Complete Joy of Home brewing by Charlie Papazian.

3kg dark liquid extract
340g crystal 10L
225g chocolate malt
56g Cascade hops @60
28g Willamette or Cascade @0
110g grated fresh ginger
11g US-05

Really beautiful drink.

 

[Hangover68]

I made an awesome gingered dark ale that I got from The Complete Joy of Home brewing by Charlie Papazian.

3kg dark liquid extract
340g crystal 10L
225g chocolate malt
56g Cascade hops @60
28g Willamette or Cascade @0
110g grated fresh ginger
11g US-05

Really beautiful drink.

Sounds like a nice Christmas beer.

 

[Tangentile]

Yep, it was!

 

[WeatherWithYou]

Maybe get yourself a nice Stout and a Ginger Beer and try blending them first. See if you like the style before committing to 20L of the stuff!

Otherwise, a normal stout yeast s-04 dry or WLP007 or Dennys Fave 50 in liquid.

I would avoid hops as there would already be a fair bit going on?

Yeah will do, though I've already played around with mulling stouts with ginger and other spices and I'm a fan.

Only thing I was thinking hops-wise is I've got some Cascade and Eclipse hops that aren't otherwise earmarked for anything, and the orange/mandarin notes could work very nicely. No bitterness, just a bit of a hop stand and restrained dry hop to give it a citrus dimension.

I love orange and mandarin notes with both gingerbeer and stouts, and I've got some spare so seems a decent use.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

If you get the balance right it will be good. I've played this game in my first year kit brewing with pale beer and the first time I did it (with real ginger and Coopers Kit. Draught, or Dark Ale with some small spice and lemon additions) It worked well. When I tried to do this with All Grain it didnt work so well. I just didn't get the balance right somehow. Something with M words like Maillard Melanoiden that are developed in the canned stuff that isnt in the raw all grains brew.

Give it a go but as for experience to make an excellent beer exactly the same twice I have not done.
$0.02

 

[WeatherWithYou]

If you get the balance right it will be good. I've played this game in my first year kit brewing with pale beer and the first time I did it (with real ginger and Coopers Kit. Draught, or Dark Ale with some small spice and lemon additions) It worked well. When I tried to do this with All Grain it didnt work so well. I just didn't get the balance right somehow. Something with M words like Maillard Melanoiden that are developed in the canned stuff that isnt in the raw all grains brew.

Give it a go but as for experience to make an excellent beer exactly the same twice I have not done.
$0.02

Nice! I'm glad to hear it worked with extract. I'm honestly fine with drinking 20+ litres of pretty ordinary beer - everything tastes better when it's home made! So long as I've tried something interesting and learned something from it, even if I don't quite get the balance right. Reckon this will be my next next beer (got an IPA to get done this weekend first).

 

[Hangover68]

I tried mixing a little ginger beer with a porter i bottled a few months ago, porter has aged nicely but i was a little heavy on the GB as it was sickly sweet.

 

[WeatherWithYou]

So an update on this, I went ahead and mixed a ginger beer kit with a Coopers stout kit, as well as a Coopers Brew Enhancer. I think number 2? Honestly this was an afterthought, I chucked it over a Voss Kveik yeast cake that I had already used to do an IPA and then rapidly turn around a porter. Side note - heavily impressed by reusing yeast cakes with no need to clean the fermenter.

Anyway, beer has fermented down, and tastes not bad, but is too sweet. Very dark and stormy. I've experimented with taking some straight from the fermenter, and it's quite nice with some lime and soda. I also happen to have some mead infused with Carolina Reaper which is brilliantly spicy, and it works really well with that.

I'm thinking of dumping some of this mead, and maybe some rum and limes into the fermenter for a few days before bottling (have a single vessel system - no room for a bottling bucket).

Alternatively, I could throw some low carb enzyme in to cut down the sweetness, boost the ABV and make it a bit more of a blank slate.

Any experienced brewers have any suggestions? The beer as it is is potentially OK but it's overly sweet.

If I was to add lime, would you suggest whole quartered limes, or lime juice? And how much roughly for a 20 litre batch? Voss Kveik is ABV friendly so I assume there would be few issues with adding other booze.

I'm a total novice brewer with experimental tastes so I'm fine taking risks but some parameters would be useful.

 

[duncbrewer]

What was the final gravity?

 

[WeatherWithYou]

What was the final gravity?

About 1.010.

 

[MHB]

GB kit is very likely to have artificial sweeteners in it. Finishing at 1.010 you wouldn’t be expecting it to be all that sweet normally.

Mark

 

[WeatherWithYou]

GB kit is very likely to have artificial sweeteners in it. Finishing at 1.010 you wouldn’t be expecting it to be all that sweet normally.

Mark

Yep, I know. I'm just looking for good options for turning it from an ordinary beer into something a little better by leaning into the sweetness.

 

[duncbrewer]

I agree with Mark if still sweet sounds as if artificial sweetener in the kit.

You could try the enzyme and see if stripping those last few gravity points out with a secondary ferment made it drier, certainly could get below 0.00 with the enzyme. At least if it was too dry you could add some sweetener afterwards under your control.

I made a cider kit during lockdown from MJ and it had a little packet of sweetener in. Said whole packet for sweet and half for medium. I put in about quarter of the packet ( no good scales at that time ) and it really was medium + in my opinion.

Can you name the kit brand for some research and as a warning to me?

My usual ginger beer recipe is ginger 500g per 10 litres of water, 10g citric acid ( or a couple of juiced lemons ), zest of 2 lemons.
Chop the ginger, freeze it then blend it with some water and then boil it with a bit more water for about 15 minutes with lid on and 2 tsp of yeast nutrient.
Pre dissolve 300g sugar in fermenter and then add water to make your final volume.
Throw in some kveik yeast, shout at it and then it's fermented in about 24 hours. Leave under airlock for another 5 days and then taste it, decide how much sweeter you want it ( it will be bone dry ) and add the erythritol to the keg before transfer, carb and go. It's pretty spicy at these quantities and about 2% alcohol.

There is also a good recipe for a ginger mead LA and session on doin the most which I'll have a go at in the future.

Some people add a little bit of chilli to add to the ginger fire! I haven't tried that yet.

Would like to hear how the enzyme goes if you try it.

 

[WeatherWithYou]

I already chucked the ginger kit unfortunately so I can't remember. It's not ridiculously sweet or anything, probably what I'd expect for a ginger beer, it's more that I was hoping the stout would balance it a bit more but it's not quite there.

I think I'll keep it simple - dry hop with some citrusy hops (I've got some Eclipse lying about) to give the sweetness some perceived context/depth, instead of just being "sweet", and then depending how it's tasting after a few days, I might drop half a bottle of rum in before bottling to give it a kick.

Serve with lime, with a dash of extremely spicy mead optional.

 

[duncbrewer]

Well the hops do have some Diastase activity so you might well get some of those long sugars broken down and the changes in sweetness you get may be due to this as well as the flavour change. Perhaps check the gravity after the hops have been in a couple of weeks.